


The Blessing of Blood

by grabmotte



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Blasphemy, Historical Fantasy, Horror, M/M, Mild Gore, Religious magic, Roman Catholicism, Vampire AU, Vampires, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-05-05 03:28:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5359415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grabmotte/pseuds/grabmotte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has been five years since the nature of the plague changed and the devil returned to France.</p><p>As he attempts to rescue one of his musketeers from a bloodthirsty pack of vampires, Captain Treville, leader of one of the king's finest vampire-slaying forces, encounters an old acquaintance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Blessing of Blood

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to thank Theonenamedafterahat for offering to beta this work, and Klara_Blum for being three quarters catholic and kindly helping me research the sacraments.

It looked like the perfect church to wed in. 

Treville shook his head to loose the memory, but now it was lodged firmly in his mind. The stone building of the Church of Saint-Joseph that he spied down the alley they were waiting in looked exactly like the types of churches that had made his baby sister weak in the knees during their shared youth. Whenever they happened to walk past one just like it – there had been decidedly more of them in the more mountainous and remote parts of Gascony – it drew a small sigh of yearning from her lips. 

"To be wedded in a church like that," she'd say, lost in her daydreams. 

The churches she loved to fantasize about were the ones from before: With pointed arches and rows of beautiful, leaded windows. Small enough to be filled up by just those relatives and acquaintances you could actually stand, and yet bright and golden and worshipful on the inside, like the cathedrals in which kings and queens received the Holy Communion. They were places that made the faithful feel close to the sacred. Places of divine transformation – from heathen to Christian; from maiden to wife; from wine to blood; from life to death. 

But despite the dreams of childhood Louise had married in a modern church without much ornamentation. The majority of churches built over the last couple of hundred years after the outbreak it had been built for practicability, to offer shelter rather than to aggrandize. Louise's wedding church might not have been beautiful but it had been safe. These words had still meant something then. 

Houses of worship had multiplied everywhere across Europe after the first outbreak of the plague on the continent almost three centuries ago. History, as Treville had been taught, said there had not been a sudden increase in devoutness for this explosion – Catholicism had dominated France for far longer than that – but simply a demand for protection and shelter that no other building type could have provided.

Paris, its suburbs and the surrounding area were full of churches. The Church of Saint-Joseph at the outskirts of the faubourg Saint-Denis was one of the oldest in the region still standing intact, which explained its shape. In all the years during which its upkeep had been tended to the clergy and city had never felt the need to change its architectural makeup. 

Now, since the transformation, one church was like the other anyway. 

In just five years the king and his council had decided to focus its wealth on fortifying a few select places across the city while orphaning the rest of its churches. The Church of Saint-Joseph was one of the abandoned.

Entire communities had been surrendered that way, for the goal of at least keeping the preying demons outside of the inner city walls. Now that Paris was far from the ever expanding, sprawling mass it had once been, its people were ever fighting to live at its centre, to move where the priests had retreated to concentrate and join their magic. 

But by surrendering parts of the city that had previously been symbols of defiance and hope they had invited in the demons; the old ones as well as the ones the Spanish had created. 

Treville could not help but think of his sister's wistful words again. The world of their youth would have looked dark to the builders of the Church of Saint-Joseph. But at least that world had still made sense. 

_To be wedded in a church like this._

"Captain!"

The memory made his task even more distasteful, for this was not a church to be wedded in any longer. 

"Captain!"

He saw his scouts return from their run around the building, hailing him and reporting that his squads of musketeers were in place, surrounding the church. It was almost time to act, time to banish all thoughts, even those of home and warmth and family, and let nothing but the hard-won, finely honed reflexes and instincts of the warrior to remain. It was almost time to give battle. 

They were fewer groups and smaller than he would have considered ideal. But tonight they would have to make do with what they had, especially when the reason for their diminished numbers was the heightened attention the palace required now that they expected the birth of the Dauphin any minute. 

Even in this world of wrong, life endured.

"Did you get a look inside the church?"

It still pained a small, secret part of Treville to refer to the infested building as a church, but he'd learned to adapt. What they were facing shouldn't be possible, and in the world he had grown up in it hadn't been. But he was no longer a child. Few people, all of them grey, would consider him young anymore in any sense of the word.

And since he had been young the world had changed. The plague had changed. And with it the demons it gave birth to. 

Or rather the demons had changed the plague. One of them had. The first new devil. The one the Spanish had created in their arrogance. 

Treville would never forgive them for it. Even if it would one day bar his soul from unity with God he could never forgive the church officials who had given the orders, or the inquisitors who had performed the rites. It didn't alleviate the pain to know they had been the first to die at the hands of their own creation. 

They had been slain by the devil they had created because they had shied from open war with France. They had made a monster to weaken their enemy instead – and it had. But not before it had eaten its way through the leadership of the Spanish Inquisition. 

Before the inquisitors had done what they had done, the churches across France had sufficed to protect her populace from the plague that turned men into soulless cannibals whose bite had the power to rob you of the core of your being. 

Before they had done what they'd done French soldiers would have gone into battle against those vampires with the extra protection of prayers and blessed weapons to sap the demons' supernatural strength. 

Now only the elite regiments like Treville's musketeers would even dare face that new strain of demon. 

Treville could never forgive any of it.

But he had to forget, for now, for there was nothing to do at present but prepare for battle.

"We got a look inside," one of the scouts, Renard, continued. "We identified two bloodsuckers. Going by the number of thralls inside the church and out there are at least three. We couldn't see into the choir properly from our vantage point without alarming the thralls to our presence, but the group taking care of that area are expecting another one of the demons in there." 

"The hostages?" 

"In the northern transept, Captain. By the looks of it they're preparing some sort of ritual."

"Or holding a party," added his partner, du Bois, with a grim face. He looked as disgusted as Treville felt. 

"Most of the windows on the north side are broken," Renard explained. "They were chanting and some of them were laughing."

"And Athos?" 

"Presumably among the hostages. It's impossible to make a clear identification. Some of them are in worse shape then others."

Treville simply nodded. Things were far from ideal, but there was no backing down now. As long as there was a chance of saving innocent lives, they had to take it. It was, after all, part of what the regiment had been created for.

"It doesn't matter," he replied after a pause. 

No matter what had become of him, Treville would not loose Athos as well. Athos, who was his most promising lieutenant. Athos, who despite his dark, taciturn nature inspired confidence and loyalty in his people, because he was loyal himself. Athos, who had been there for him five years ago, when he had seen the face of the devil. 

When they found Athos, he needed to be prepared to deliver whatever mercy he could.

Athos, who had lost himself trying to save a new recruit and his fiancée all on his own. 

Perhaps, in a different life, the young lovers could have been wed in this church.

"Man your posts," he said, brushing away the memories. "Keep an eye out for reinforcements once we're inside. Now that we're in position we're going to move." 

But before they went Treville stopped the two scouts by placing a hand on the shoulder of one the nearest to him. "You've done well." he said without a hint of irony.

"Thank you, Captain."

As Treville watched the signal be prepared that would be repeated across the rooftops surrounding the church to let each group know the attack had begun he felt his heart begin to beat faster and his blood rush through his veins at the prospect of battle. 

They would face the vampires the Spanish Inquisition had inadvertently created, in the one place where no vampires should be.

If only Spain had chosen open war instead of deceit their churches would still be safe. But blinded by their fear and hatred for their neighbour with one fell stroke the Spanish had given to the devil freely what previously could not be taken even through torture. 

In their cruelty the inquisition had created a new breed of demon that could not be stopped by church doors and crucifixes.

The higher ordained a priest was, the more secrets he learned, the better protected he was and the more powerful grew his magic. A priest could be killed by the demons, but he could not be turned into a demon himself. 

It took a member of the clergy ranked as highly as their victim to strip one of their own of these protections for long enough to be infected. Treville had heard the story from the devil's own mouth, five years ago, when the creature had first come to France – the devil the Spanish had given a face.

What the inquisitors hadn't known was what would happen to the monster created by that procedure, because an abomination like this had never been attempted before.

They hadn't realised that their creature would still know the secrets bestowed upon it by consecration. That it would retain its divine blessings, its faith, and its soul. That this would render it immune to the sign of the cross, and the holy water and the power of prayer as much as against blessed bullets and blades coated in holy oils. 

This immunity the devil spread to every demon it sired, and its spawn spread it to every demon they sired in turn. 

It was why when Treville looked at the besieged church what he saw was the folly and pride of Spanish bishops that had doomed the Christian world. And he was reminded of what their abominable practices had cost him personally – what that first demon they had unleashed had taken from him, never to be regained. There was no returning what a vampire's bite took.

It was the latter that prevented him from ever letting go.

He took a deep breath. 

Treville loosed his sword in its sheath. 

No holy water and no crosses would help the musketeers here, but only brute force. 

The signal was given, and Treville's squad moved in unison to take back the church. 

Their nightly raid might have been haphazardly organised, but musketeers weren't considered elite for a lack of initiative, and with one of their own in danger none of them were wont to waste a single minute more than absolutely necessary. 

Together, they dispatched the thralls positioned to guard the building within seconds. 

All three entries into the church's main hall were ripped open at once. Treville's group burst in through the front doors, which allowed them a prime view down the nave. None of the sights that greeted them in the light of the church's lit chandeliers made them hesitate in their assault. 

They were old hands at this game, knowing to take in only the information that they needed: The upturned wooden pews, ripped off their stone supports became obstacles blocking the aisles, as were the smashed stoup, the shards from the broken windows and the debris from the figures of saints that had survived centuries looking down into the nave only to be smashed by vampires now. 

The sight of the naked, bloodied body spread across the altar was something to take in once their enemies were subdued. The living men and women that still could be saved were of much greater importance. 

The musketeers realised at once they were facing a rogue group of vampires - heretics. The cardinal, claiming to still be the same man who the Inquisition had fed to the demon that now wore his face, would never have allowed this desecration to take place.

There was little time to muse while Treville's group still possessed the advantage of surprise. The thralls before them stopped their singing, but were sluggish to realise the danger they found themselves in, and the first of them went down before they could fight back. 

It meant a terrible fate for the enchanted men and women, but there was only so much you could do to subdue a foe who couldn't feel pain – not even their own muscles ripping as they exerted superhuman strength to break any bonds you might place them in and crush your bones. If you didn't want to kill them, unless you got at their master, the quickest way to take them out of the fight was to cripple them.

This was not a church for marrying any more. 

It was with little regret that Treville dove under the next thrall that lunged at him and turned around to hack at the back of her knees with the cutting edge of his board, flat, sword. Even then his enemy was still eager to crawl and snatch any piece of debris, any splinter of wood as a weapon. A kick to the head put an end to these efforts. 

There was no sign of the vampires so far, but it would be relying on too much luck to hope for the demons having all turned into mist and fled at their approach, leaving behind their thralls to cover their escape. 

The aisles emptied as more of the vampires' servants rushed to the aid of their brethren. 

They had been sitting on the destroyed benches, as if waiting for mass to begin, some of them clutching the broken off limbs and heads of the stone saints, torn from the pillars and walls. Now they stood and rushed to all sides of the church to fight the invading musketeers.

The only way for the soldiers was forward, but forward lead through a throng of the demons' enchanted servants – many of them armed with clubs, improvised pikes or butcher's tool; all of driven by nothing but the thought of murder. 

There was no time to be gentle. There were living humans yet to be saved who hadn't given their minds to demons. 

The next thrall who stepped into his way Treville cut down with an upswing of his sword that ripped open the thrall's unprotected torso and slit his throat, spattering them both with blood.

Turning to face his next opponent, Treville eye he spotted one of his musketeers, Berthier, being driven back against a pillar by another thrall, but the fiend stumbled back when a gunshot ripped through the sounds of the fight. 

"Save your fire," Treville shouted.

In his distress the musketeer had shot the thrall through the stomach, but that didn't stop the man from lunging at the soldier with a stiletto. 

It was uncanny what a man could still do while his guts disintegrated when he couldn't feel any pain. 

Berthier side-stepped and brought up his blade to deflect the stiletto. The thrall ended up charging at the pillar and fell headlong onto one of the broken pews. 

His body had just hit the wood when Treville jumped on him, slung an arm across the heaving chest from behind and cut his throat with his dagger. Stepping back he let the thrall sink back to the ground. 

The way to the chancel cleared easily after that. There the real fighting took place. 

Few of the people enthralled had ever learned to fight. It was their brute strength that made them dangerous. But the vampires waiting for them in the sanctuary in possession of all their wits and capable of supernatural feats of evasion were a far greater threat.

Treville could spot four of them as they approached the chancel. He could also see the body bleeding out on the altar and the surviving captured humans tied up in the transept. The other two squads were fighting to get to them and keep the vampires from them at the same time.

What he couldn't allow for was the sight of a corpse in a blue accentuated uniform arresting his heart even for a moment if he wanted the rest of them to live long enough to properly mourn the fallen.

The remaining musketeers were fighting the vampires three on one, each carrying their parrying dagger in hand in case one of the demons launched themselves at them, hoping to get close enough to rip out their throats with tooth and claw.

But for now the vampires defended themselves with their blades, giving them the advantage of speed and reach. Not having to rely on their ability to chop off their opponents' limbs the vampires favoured thinner, faster weapons, lacking an effective cutting edge, but no less deadly when thrust. 

With an immortal demon like this, who could not be weakened by prayer and holy water, your best bet was overwhelming force, which was exactly what Treville planned on delivering. He ordered his group to join their brothers and get a blade to the hostages as quickly as possible to cut their bonds. 

A hiss in the air, like drops of water sizzling on a hot stove, was all the warning they got of the fifth vampire in the church. 

With a grunt Treville whirled around and jumped to gain enough space between him and the musketeers fighting the vampire he had intended to engage.

At night, in a church lit only by those of its chandeliers and candelabra that had survived the building's abandonment and defilement, it was hard to make out the moving form of mist. It must have been one of the first demons to be converted after the cardinal's return to France to have had time to learn this trick. 

Few of them that dared to enter hunt in the capitol grew old enough. Even fewer learned it without the imperfection that made them vulnerable when they transformed back into physical form. 

Treville had to trust his ears and the sensation of rushing air on the exposed skin of his neck to decide when to strike. 

As he thrust his dagger blindly into the gloom he found that this demon had not been old enough to master the transformation. He was even amateurish enough to try and get at his victim from behind like in the paintings, mouth wide open and fangs extended to deliver the vampire's venom. 

The demon Treville faced when he turned around, holding on to the blade, had the appearance of a young man – dark hair and goatee, pale skin, and hazel eyes that were opened round in surprise, followed by panic as he clutched at the hilt of the dagger plunged deep into his torso and the fingers that encircled it. 

His searching grip was not determined enough to stop Treville from pulling away, bracing the vampire with one arm, and shoving the dagger back between his ribs, this time right into his heart. A kick sufficed to send the stunned demon onto his hands and knees. Another moment saw him relieved of his head, his immortal life cut short. Before his skull even hit the ground the body already started crumbling to ash. 

What thralls he had controlled, if they were still able to move, would make their escape now if they were smart.

Treville spun around gain, ready to rejoin the fight.

One of the vampires had led a group of musketeers all across the chancel, thrusting and retreating immediately with the swiftness of a dancer. One of the musketeers, grown tired of their light-footed opponent's advantage that the shape and greater reach of his sword gave him, grabbed the vampire's blade to stop their dance. He cried out as the fiend dragged the sword through the flesh of his hand, but the moment's distraction sufficed for the musketeers' partners to plunge their swords into the vampire's shoulders. Pinned like this the vampire was easily decapitated.

Another one, pushed into a corner, jumped on the altar, crouching over the lifeless body lying there, baring her teeth. Four musketeers shot her in the head without hesitation, her body collapsing over the marble altar. Berthier threw her to the floor where he removed what was left of her head with his sword. 

The two remaining vampires didn't stand a chance against the superiority they now faced. 

They found themselves on the defence, constantly moving, trying their best to avoid being driven into a corner or against a wall where they could be easily pinned and relieved of their heads. One of them jumped down the raised step from the sanctuary into the nave, standing still long enough only to swing his sword in a wide, desperate arc in an attempt to create some space between him and the soldiers. 

Treville took the opportunity to shoot him in the right shoulder. 

A pistol shot couldn't kill a vampire, but even to them a broken bone was at least a nuisance until they could retreat to their lair to sleep and heal. The sword tumbled from the vampire's disabled fighting arm, but it didn't send him to his knees. With a hiss he turned into mist, flying up to the ceiling, towards the broken windows. The sword thrusts came too late to catch him mid-transformation.

That left one vampire, evidentially unable to transform, facing vastly superior numbers. He turned and ran, jumping into the aisles, vaulting over broken pews, the musketeers in purseuit.

Out of shot and since the musketeers appeared to have things in hand Treville called to one of them, Dumont, and together they headed towards the shadowed transept where the vampires had stored their hostages.

"Captain!"

Treville could not help the relieved expression that flashed across his face as he heard the voice of his missing lieutenant.

Athos was sitting on the floor hands and feet tied, stripped of his uniform jacket and weapons. But apart from a bruised chin and bleeding, but shallow cuts on his chest visible trough his ripped shirt he looked unharmed and blessedly human. 

The same could not be said for their new recruit. His face and shirt were discoloured by drying blood from a head-wound. But at least d'Artagnan was breathing. His eyes were closed, his forehead resting on the shoulder of the young woman beside him. It was Constance, his fiancée, wearing a dress stained from his blood.

Two more hostages were sitting next to them who Treville didn't recognise. He motioned to Dumont to cut them loose while he freed Athos.

"Thank God, you're here, Captain," Constance said. Once her bonds were loosened she put her hands on d'Artagnan's face, examining his wound. Athos helped her support him. He wore an unreadable expression on his face, but Treville knew he was worried. 

"My first husband was one of them." Constance looked towards the altar where the female vampire's remains had already rotted to ash. "My late husband," she corrected herself. "D'Artagnan was trying to protect me from him. He'd come to get me."

"Don't blame yourself." Treville interrupted her, placing a careful hand on d'Artagnan's head. "He's tough. He'll pull through." 

Treville was sure he was going to hear the full tale eventually, "but for now it's imperial that we get you out of here. All of you." 

A thump and a cheer told Treville that the last vampire had died. Leaving Athos and Dumont to help carry d'Artagnan, Treville stood up to order his victorious musketeers to help the rescued hostages back to civilisation. 

The hissing and the rush of air took them all by surprise. Treville was thrown against the wall that separated the transept from the raised sanctuary. The impact made him see stars as a stinging pain flashed through his left hip. 

He regained his balance just in time to see Dumont collapse, blood spurting from his slit throat. 

The demon couldn't be hoping for more than some short-lived revenge. He'd caught them off-guard he couldn't expect to kill all of the musketeers heading for him.

The vampire, perhaps having drawn the same conclusion headed away from the oncoming musketeers, back to Treville. 

But this time Treville was prepared.

The moment the vampire became matter and pulled him onto his feet he stuck his dagger between his ribs. His foe grunted in pain, but while he stumbled the blade had not robbed the vampire of his supernatural strength. With a cry of rage, the blade still sticking out from his chest, he flung Treville into the aisle.

This time, the impact robbed him off his senses. After the darkness had passed from his eyes he saw Athos had picked up Dumont's blades and chopped off the demon's head, while three of his brothers held the beast down. 

Even though on some level he realised he was panting and his abdomen cramping Treville's first thoughts were for the safety of his men: There had been a third vampire skilled enough to fly. This was unprecedented. 

The pain only came later. Gradually tingling at first, alarming him that something was amiss. When his musketeers headed towards him and he had futilely sought to gain purchase to push himself up he had looked down at his body to see the wound he had only been able to gasp.

He didn't need to see the men's faces to know he had fought his last battle. He had crashed into the broken pews. Part of a wooden board was sticking through his body, pointing at the arched ceiling, shining with a wet coat of blood.

"Captain."

He swallowed. He swallowed again and he still couldn't utter a sound.

The musketeers had formed a protective half circle around him. Out of the periphery of his vision he saw Constance looking over, leaning with d'Artagnan against the bloody alter.

All of his senses appeared heightened to him. He couldn't wait for them to die. He groaned as his nerves finally registered that his body was on fire. 

"Captain," someone repeated. 

Athos and another musketeer he recognised as Berthier carefully stepped over the debris and knelt next to him. 

He felt them lift up his head perhaps in the hopes that it would help him speak. One of them stroked his hair.

"Athos."

Treville struggled to find words and force them out of his constricting throat. He took a deep breath, and another one after that. He needed to calm down in order to say what he had to say. 

"Yes, Captain," Athos replied, his voice low, his face wearing the customary frown. Treville imagined that frown was a little deeper than usual, but he found he couldn't really see all that clearly through the tears that shock and pain forced into his eyes.

"Just get the hostages out." 

The pain was bearable when he didn't move at all.

"Captain."

"You've done a good job today." 

The dark cast to Athos' frown made him look like he wanted to disagree, but he said "yes, Captain."

"You made me proud." He couldn't make out the musketeers' faces, but the quality of their silence convinced him that they heard him, even though his voice sounded rough to his own ears. 

"Now you must finish your job."

Treville closed his eyes trying to breathe in deeply again, but talking appeared to have exhausted him and quickened his pulse. Perhaps that was for the best. It would be over soon. 

Athos watched his face for a moment, and then turned his head, repeating the order to the musketeers who had remained rooted to where they stood. 

They finally moved to help the hostages after bowing deeply before their captain. Except for Athos who remained kneeling by Treville's side. 

"You're going to be captain now," Treville told him. "Louis knows I recommended you." He panted. "He won't refuse once he hears…"

Athos looked like he was going to protest, but Treville pulled his remaining strength together to cut him off. "Don't tell me I'm going to make it. We both know there isn't a surgeon in the world who could fix this." He gasped and Athos futilely moved to try and support his neck better. 

"If there is one," Treville continued, his voice becoming more strained, "I'll bleed out before he gets here."

He took another deep breath and swallowed. Saying it out loud numbed the pain. It numbed everything. Or perhaps that was his body beginning to die.

One of the doors of the main entrance opened. But it was not the musketeers leaving with the hostages. Treville could still see them in the chancel. 

Someone had entered. 

"There's more vampire's coming!" 

Treville recognised the voice of one of the scouts. Du Bois. The man paused, probably taking in the scene that greeted him in the church. When he spoke up again his voice had altered. There was a shaky cadence to it, but only for a moment. 

"More vampires coming from the east," he continued. "It's the Cardinal's pack. They must have picked up the fleeing thralls." 

Under the circumstances quite a few of the musketeers could not stop themselves to answer with noises of dismay.

Treville could feel his heart-rate pick up.

"Go!" He raised his voice as much as he could. Athos looked as if he would like nothing more than to scold him for it, as sarcastic as he could.

"Athos, go," Treville repeated.

"I can't leave you here."

"I won't make it long anyway." He forced out the words through a strange numbness. 

"I'll stay with you."

"No."

"Captain—"

"Listen!"

Athos shut up.

"Bring d'Artagnan and Constance away from here." He sighed audibly when the thought struck him. "Make sure he doesn't let that girl get away from him."

Athos' mouth twitched, but he didn't smile. He considered seriousness sacred in the appropriate situations. 

Loosing your captain and having to replace him must be one of those.

"Lave now."

"I can't."

"If he finds you here—"

"Please!"

Once more Athos stopped his protests. Even in the gloom of the half-lit church he looked pale and tired.

"Let me at least—"

"No." Treville had seen Athos reach around to where he had stowed his borrowed weapons. "Leave me—", he faltered, struggling for anything convincing to say. "Leave me with my thoughts."

"But—"

"It won't be long," Treville interrupted him again, panting at the exertion that speaking brought. "I need—" He paused. What did he need? Time to find his way to God? To commune with the Holy Spirit? Wasn't it more that he needed Athos not to have to live with the memory of having killed him?

But Athos rendered any explanation unnecessary. "I understand," he said.

Treville had no idea what it was he understood, but the musketeer pulled out his dagger and placed it beside him.

"It has been an honour," he said.

"Goodbye, Athos."

Athos nodded, unable or unwilling to say another word. He pressed Treville's hand instead and held his gaze for a long moment. Finally he laid Treville's head down gently, and got up to follow his brother musketeers outside, who had to leave their comrades' bodies behind.

Treville, too, was left in silence. 

This would be the end, then? And to think, before he entered here he'd been thinking about architecture of all things. He snorted and felt something inside him rupture. He'd gotten to know the church's architecture better than intended.

If— when Constance and d'Artagnan married, he hoped they found a beautiful church. Not the fortresses of the new age. But a church like this one had once been.

He looked up at the ceiling and the pillars and the gleaming chandeliers.

With the sounds of footsteps retreating and doors closing faded away in the half-light, Treville found he had not been left as alone as he had thought. What saints still had faces and eyes looked down upon him. He returned their gaze as he waited for the sacred darkness to embrace him, trying to identify what few he knew and forget the ache in his midsection. 

In the recess near the altar, supporting the arching roof and easy to recognize even for Treville, stood Joseph of Nazareth, after whom the church was named, holding the Christ Child, crowned by lilies.

Yes, this could have been a church for marrying, once.

Treville inhaled a stuttering breath. At least Louise was taken care of, far away in remote Gascony. Her sons would inherit the estates. Everything he owned in Paris he'd willed to Porthos, who was guarding the Queen's labours tonight. 

Athos would lead the musketeers from here on. 

He needn't worry.

But still he could not lighten his heart that did its best to pump out his blood through a hole that shouldn't be there. 

He regarded the saints silently, sighing as guts burned. Treville had never been a diligent pupil of theology, even felt wary in his youth of these heavenly protectors that whose example man was to follow in order to learn how to split himself in two and separate the body from the soul. He had struggled so much to make sense of this denial asked of him, until he had met the one cleric who had been so impious when it came to carnal matters and in his political ambitions, but who had argued theology and turned his opponents with real faith in his heart when it came to upholding and worshiping God.

He'd been infuriating, but the world had made more sense with him in it. Yet the desire to share his faith had let them to their greatest sin.

Treville coughed. His breathing became harsher and Treville could feel tears start to well up in the corners of his eyes. His body was growing numb, but the slightest movement reignited the pain. It couldn't be much longer now, it couldn't be. He'd be at peace, whatever came next. Treville gasped into the night, imagining he felt his organs rupture. Whatever came next, it had to be better than this. 

He could hold on to the faith of dear Armand. It would flatter the old fox if he knew. But Treville had too many doubts to know for certain that this was the road his soul would take. 

Faith was the path to life eternal. Faith and contrition. 

But there was no confessor to absolve him now, and, oh Lord, how he had sinned. 

Armand had refused to acknowledge any form of affection and trust as mortal sin – venal, maybe. But Treville wondered, looking up at the stern face of Saint Joseph, what he would have to say about it now, if he were still able to think with his own mind. Now that even though no one had believed like Armand had, he hadn't been granted to see the kingdom of heaven either. 

Perhaps a state of nothingness after death would have been kinder. 

Treville whipped his head around instinctively at the sound of footsteps slicing through the silent night. He gasped in pain as he tried to raise his head to identify the figure that stepped into the gloom of the aisle. The answer to who went there proved not worth the effort of finding out. 

The vampire with the shattered shoulder had returned. 

"Are you still alive?" He looked bemused as much as bewildered.

"I could ask the same."

The vampire stalked towards him, voice filled with childish wonder. He looked down at the soldier's wounds with a curious expression. 

"Not for long, it seems."

Treville didn't reply. He had nothing to say to this creature. Nothing of what happened to him here mattered any more. All that mattered was that Athos had gotten away with the hostages. 

All that was left for Treville to do was die. If he'd be allowed to die.

The demon knelt down next to him, gingerly placing a hand on the splinter protruding from the wounded man's body. 

Treville's breathing quickened in anticipation of a push, but the vampire just sat and watched.

"You must be in immense pain," he commented. He pulled back his lips to expose his fangs in a grim smile.

"Shall I relieve you of it?"

Despite the way it set his nerve endings on fire and numbed his remaining senses Treville's hands found the dagger Athos had left behind and shoved it at the demon's face. He would bleed to death impaled on a church bench if he had any choice before he allowed this creature to take him. But it proved no effort for the demon to push the hand holding the weapon away and make the blade clatter harmlessly onto the ruined pew. 

Treville had no defence left when the demon bent down. He could feel the monster's breath humid at his neck.

"I'll take that as a yes."

"I wouldn't if I were you."

The vampire looked up, growling, to see a woman standing in the shadow of the lectern. She had appeared out of thin mist in the gloom, pale, dark-haired, and with eyes that sparkled as icily as the star she wore on a ribbon around her neck as they caught the light of one of the candelabra. There was no telling how long she'd been in the building with them and watched, but now she was walking over to them.

The heretic with the broken shoulder pushed himself up onto his feet, attempting to hide his injury as he adopted a challenging stance.

"Want to fight me for a drop?"

The newcomer shrugged. "By all means," she said. "Bite him. Drink until he's dry. Kill him or turn him, it's of no interest to me." She sat down on the stone supports of one of the upturned benches, brushing dust of her cloak as she did so, not even bothering to keep her eyes on the other vampire. "But if the use of your limbs is part of the joy of your continued existence you might want to leave now."

"And why would I do that?"

He stepped around Treville's prone form to face her, looking as if he was prepared to launch himself at her any moment. 

Having goaded her opponent successfully the female demon stood up slowly, an amused, close-lipped smile spreading across her white face. She turned her head to look down the aisles. 

"Ask them."

The main doors to the church burst open. Multiple sets of footsteps echoed through the nave and aisles, but this time Treville didn't even attempt to turn his head. 

But he heard the demon that had laid claim to his blood curse loudly. 

The woman jumped him before he could turn to flee. They wrestled on the floor in their physical forms, since she would have ripped him to shreds the moment he began transforming. His injury made it a short fight. 

The newcomers rushed into view within seconds. They wore dark coats slashed with red, partly obscured by red capes. They were the cardinal's red acolytes, vampires and humans alike, none of them thralls.

While they distracted themselves helping the woman subdue the heretic Treville moved his hands across the rubble around him, hoping to find his dagger again, but the task was made harder by the numbness that had crawled into his fingers.

Soon the heretic was dragged cursing and spitting before their leader, held down by three broad-shouldered men with their fangs bared. Treville recognised the leader as Jussac, once Captain of the Red Guards, now, even though he remained human, something more sinister.

"He's part of this, Milady?"

The vampire interrupted fixing her hair to nod.

"And more than that, he was about to bite him."

The acolytes' heads turned as one into the direction Milady pointed out. None of them had noticed the bleeding man in the aisle before. It was a testament to the amounts of gore shed all over the place that the vampires among the group hadn't smelled him at once.

"Good Lord, Treville!"

Jussac hastened over to him and took up the place the heretic had abandoned. 

Treville would have tried to get up again to speed along his fate, but he couldn't assemble the strength for it. How long had he been waiting now, minutes, hours? Had he been waiting for peace only to have it ripped out of his throat?

"Don't bother," he croaked, directed at the former Red Guard. His dimming consciousness registered surprise at the roughness of his voice. He could taste blood on his tongue.

At the sight of his wounds Jussac grew so pale that it was noticeable even in the sparse light. He turned towards his companions. "Get that heretic out of here. But keep good watch, His Eminence will want him alive."

He knelt back down again, hands raised, as if he was going to attempt to help – a human reflex maybe. But he dropped his hands quickly. It had to be obvious even to him that Treville was beyond help. 

"Just leave me be," Treville whispered.

"His Eminence will be here shortly. He'll be eager to finally speak to you." 

Treville felt his heartbeat quicken pathetically. "I'm afraid he'll be disappointed." He lifted Athos' dagger, not aimed at his opposite this time, but nearly passed out again from the effort.

Jussac snatched the weapon from him. 

"I can't let you do this," he said and threw the blade away. 

A faint hissing sound made the Red Acolytes look up.

"Here he comes now."

A fine mist, red, like a spray of blood, moved through the air over the candles above. It settled to solidify into a human shape at Milady's side.

At last, here he was, this demon wearing his former ally's face. Treville exhaled shakily and closed his eyes. 

How he'd hoped to be spared having to see him again. He tried to move again, lift himself up, kick; anything to dislodge the splinters so that his lifeblood would finally leave him and speed him on his way to the next life. But his strength had long since abandoned him, and Jussac moved to hold him in place immediately. 

"Easy," Jussac said. 

They immediately drew the demon's attention. His eyes widened in shock, and he stepped closer, his lips moving without sound before he finally found words to speak: 

"Jean, Jean, what happened to you?" 

Treville said nothing. His breathing accelerated and his heart fluttered like it was trying to escape his chest, forcing out more blood through the fresh holes in his body. 

There was nothing he could do to prevent the demon who had been Richelieu from sitting down next to him. He could not even flinch from the demon's touch as he reached out to stroke his cheek. It felt very much like this same gesture once did from the man this demon had swallowed.

"Who did this?"

Milady spoke up. "One of the heretics. He's outside with the others."

The demon wearing Richelieu's face looked like he was going to walk out and confront them immediately, but then thought better of it. 

"Have them taken to the chateau, Milady, and find whoever sired them."

"Yes, Cardinal."

The demon resumed stroking Treville's face and when he paused Treville saw his hand come away coloured by a smear of drying blood. He had no idea whether it was his, but guessed he must be covered in the thralls' gore.

"My dear Captain…"

It was easier to look at him when he sounded so sad. Richelieu had never sounded so sad. 

"What have they done to you?"

Treville wanted to ask the same question: 

_What have they done to you?_

_How can this be you?_

But he knew the demon wouldn't understand. 

"Please," he said instead, hoping his speech was still intelligible. "I'm dying. Leave me be."

Perhaps, if part of Richelieu was still in him, the demon would listen. 

"I know," was all that the demon said and Treville sighed in despair. "I can help you."

"No. Don't."

But the demon ignored him. 

"Life on Earth is a gift from God, Jean," he said. "We don't decide when it ends."

Treville groaned when his shoulders were lifted up. Stars appeared before his eyes, but he refused to scream. Through the pain he hardly noticed the rolled up cloaked being placed under his head. 

It was no comfort. He knew the only reason for them to move him was for the demon gain better access to the veins in his neck. 

Through the haze of the dulling pain he felt more than saw his protective leather coat being cut open and his shirt being unlaced and pushed aside to bare more of his skin.

"Don't you dare take this from me," he croaked.

"Hush. The pain clouds your senses. We don't have time."

"Please."

"Don't be afraid, Jean."

"Please!"

"At the end of my torture I was given a gift, Jean. We must not fear it."

Behind the demon the human acolytes turned away their faces. The vampires retreated to grant their leader the customary privacy. Only Jussac stayed to help his master, his face a grey mask. 

Treville groaned.

"Is there anything you wish to confess to unburden your soul?"

"Please," Treville repeated. 

He could feel the demon that had been Richelieu stroke his thumb over the exposed skin of his neck.

"You will be absolved of your sins, as long as there is contrition in your heart."

Between the sensations of the demon's soft touch, that reminded him so much of the man the vampire claimed to still be inside, and his heart hammering in his chest so hard he feared he'd break another rib, it took Treville a long while to realise that the creature was offering him the sacrament of penitence. 

Would he also be given the last communion by this demon? Would he be allowed to die with God in his mouth and the promise of life eternal?

"Jean?" His voice sounded almost as thin as Treville's.

Treville realised that the demon was waiting for a reply. He was waiting for his affirmation of faith and a confirmation that he was ready to confess his sins. 

Treville's sight became misty. This demon that still thought of himself as a cardinal – as Treville's cardinal – was no ordained priest. Yet, the blessings and protections that been bestowed upon Richelieu at each of his consecrations had not simply vanished; they had merely been transformed. 

What became of a soul confessing to such a black priest? 

Treville sighed. He felt his heart stutter and fresh blood coat his tongue. Not long now. He looked up into the demon's blue eyes. They were Richelieu's eyes, even though they looked watery and reddened, soaked in worry and sorrow. I was impossible. He was a monster now. There was no returning what the vampire's bite took. But that was in the days of _before_.

The demon still believed that he was Richelieu. In this moment, it was all that Treville could reach out to.

Treville moved his lips weakly and closed his eyes. "Bless me, Father," he thought he was saying. "For I have sinned." It had been five years since his last confession. 

Richelieu helped him make the sign of the cross and bent down to lend his ear to listen. 

Treville barely kept track of what he told his confessor. _I drink a lot_ , maybe. _I swear_. _I have taken the lord's name in vain._ _I loved a man once._

The familiar, traditional words of the blessing Richelieu offered after Treville had finished returned strength to the cardinal's voice. It was pure Richelieu. 

The exact words he used registered with Treville even less than his confession, but the child within him that had once learned them still knew them well: The words asking for intercession from the Virgin and the saints to help the penitent endure and heal his sins, so that he may be rewarded with eternal life. 

"Jean?"

Richelieu called his fading consciousness back into the present and Treville noted that the church had become darker. Although he could see the candle flames burning their shine didn't quite reach his eyes. 

"Armand," he whispered. "Please."

"I know," Armand repeated and kissed his brow. "We must pray now."

Treville would have nodded in agreement if he had found the strength to do so. He knew he needed to prepare for his journey to his next life, life eternal. 

"Don't be afraid, Jean." 

He wasn't. He had always loved watching Richelieu hold mass, doing what he was meant to do. It was his true calling, those moments when he was nothing but the man of God, freed from the burdens of state for a short while. During mass he performed his role as the grand cardinal, dressed in rich vestments within the sanctuary of a sparkling cathedral, all splendid, holy, shining. 

Treville reached up to briefly touch Richelieu's face. It was worth the pain.

"Pater noster," the cardinal began, "qui es in caelis…" 

The prayer was taken up by the acolyte at Richelieu's side. Treville would have spoken the words with him, but it was impossible while Richelieu licked the blood from his lips. Under the broad strokes of his tongue Treville felt his mouth open on its own accord, as if waiting for a kiss. 

This was not the viaticum Treville had expected to nourish him on his last journey. It was only then that he remembered it wasn't the Armand he remembered performing the rites. 

But it was already too late to resume his protests. The demon that was Richelieu initiated a different sort of Holy Communion: No wine and no bread played a part in this transformation. The Christ's blood that they shared between them flowed from Treville's veins as Richelieu sank his fangs into his neck. 

The burning pain made him scream. It was Treville's last act of defiance. There was no pretending he enjoyed it. Instinctually his body tried to push the assailant off him and to fight the venom flowing through his veins that sought to numb his nerves and kill the pain. But he only succeeded in impaling himself deeper on the shattered wood. 

His screams turned to whimpers and moans while the demon-that-was-a-man continued to lick and suck, but renewed when they lifted him off the splinters that had pierced him to sit him up in the cardinal's lap. Richelieu abandoned his sucking to bite down again on the same spot, sealing the wounds in Treville's neck with his fangs and injecting fresh venom into his system to kill the increasing pain. 

This time Treville didn't have the strength or the will to hold on to the pain. Instead he concentrated on the way Richelieu's fingers felt in his hair, his touch soft, comforting.

He sighed at every lick while his thoughts turned to fluff. 

The sucking became like kisses in his mind. The pain disappeared, displaced by a light-headedness that made him smile when he considered that they were finally consummating again what had been kept from them for so long. 

"Armand…"

When his consciousness finally frayed and Armand's kisses accompanied him into sleep, he couldn't help but remember his sister's wistful words a final time: To be wedded in a church like this…

Treville exhaled deeply.

"Armand," he whispered again.

It was the last thing he uttered before the darkness took him to lead him onto the path to life-in-death eternal. And he saw that he was holding Armand's hand.


End file.
